


Born in Blood

by OneMoreAltmer



Series: Dragon Age: Taniva Tabris [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 04:32:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14762649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneMoreAltmer/pseuds/OneMoreAltmer
Summary: A sequel to "Trovommi Amor." Post-Awakening, Zevran and Taniva Tabris are building their life together, but a new move by his former master calls Zevran back to Antiva. He must try to put his life with the Crows to rest before it can destroy his wife and their coming child.





	1. The Hawk

            Zevran did not have high hopes for this latest group of three, at least not out on their own.  Not a tracker among them, which meant that it was the team Anders was leading that found them first, rather than the other way around, an unusual victory he suspected the mage would remember for longer than was desirable.  Hardly fair, since the two of them were only along on this exercise to observe, not to advise.  Still, the young man from Highever was not bad with a bow, and the freckle-faced elf Shianni had turned over to them rather than the city guard had the sort of stubbornness that would serve her well enough as a Warden, if she survived the ritual.

            It was a lovely spring in Amaranthine, and he had come to find the smell of its trees rather pleasant.  For this phase of training they were out a good distance from their stronghold:  they’d set up camp, as it were, in an abandoned barn, where the senior Warden was waiting for them.  The tracking contest had carried them far enough from even that to give a feeling of proper wilderness.

            Why did that suddenly bother him?

            Anders came to stand beside him and leaned on his staff, nonchalantly looking up at the weather.  “It’s early yet.  Do we want to have them do anything else before we head back?”

            There was no reasonable explanation for it.  _Sentire il falco_ – hearing the hawk, as the Crows had called it.  An instinct that something was amiss, even though he could not see it.  “No.  Let us go back now.”

            Anders shrugged and fell into step beside him when he started walking.

            Perhaps it was because the man was still giving advice over his shoulder on tracking that Zevran was paying so much attention to the ground.  They were not within sight of the old barn yet when he started to think that the earth beneath them was already disturbed – a problem because this was not the way he and Anders had led the recruits out.  He raised a hand for quiet and stepped up his pace.  When he saw the side door standing open, he broke into a run.

            The floor was crimson and littered with strange men in light Antivan armor.  That was when the fear really took hold; he had to keep himself from calling out for his Warden as he quickly made his way through the bodies, glancing over them as briefly as he could just to make sure she was not lying amongst –

            No.  On the other side of the partition that divided the women’s cots from the men’s, she was kneeling over the last of the fallen, knives still drawn, her face full of strain and concentration.  The new Wardens and the dead Crows vanished, and there was only his beloved, flushed and winded and spattered with blood.  He rushed to her and took hold as if afraid she might melt away.  “Are you hurt?”

            “No.”  She shook her head.  “Just tired.  I’ve lost some of my stamina, I suppose.”

            He touched his forehead to hers.  “ _Il nostro bambino?_ ”  One hand strayed onto the hard swell of her abdomen, and after a moment he felt the unborn child stir in response to him.  His eyes swept up and down her body quickly to make sure:  it would only take a superficial cut to introduce a poison.  Nothing.  No harm done to either of them, then.  He let out a long sigh.  “We are done here,” he announced, as if the decision was entirely his to make.  “There is better protection for you in Denerim.”

            She smiled a little.  “You think this was about me?”

            The death of a client normally rendered a contract null and void, so the Crows’ interest in Wardens ought to have died with Loghain.  _His_ Warden did not know the Crows well enough to realize that it was a fact that only made this incident look worse.  On the other hand, their interest in _him_ should have ended with his little chat with the Guildmaster.  That had involved some effort and precious time away from his Warden, and the thought that it might have been for nothing pleased him not at all – and also did not explain why they would have attacked her in his absence.

            “Why don’t you ask?” Anders drawled, throwing a singed-looking ruffian onto the floor in front of them.  “This one seems to have fled the scene when she started killing his friends.”

            Zevran was kneeling on the man’s chest with his daggers unsheathed before he quite realized that he had started to move.  “Your target,” he snarled, pressing both blades against his captive’s throat.  He was young, and his eyes were not as hardened as they should be when he spat up toward Zevran’s face in defiance.  With a sneer, the elf sheathed one dagger, and with the free hand he grabbed into the would-be killer’s hair and slammed his head against the floor, keeping the remaining dagger pressed into his throat.

            “You are no hero,” he hissed, “or you would never have run.  Only an apprentice.  I can do things to you they haven’t even _shown_ you yet.  _Your target._ ”

            That made the young man find his voice, at least.  “They’ll kill me.”

            “What’s left of you.”

            That broke him.  “Zevran and Taniva Arainai.”

            Zevran ignored the blood pounding in his ears and nodded.  “Your master.”

            “Alesio.”

            Yes.  As he had thought.  He pulled the second dagger again and slashed both of them through the apprentice Crow’s windpipe, leaving him to suffocate in a pool of his own blood.

            He could feel the stares of the greener recruits as he rose to his feet, making himself look calm as he cleaned his blades and sheathed them.  Some of them, after all, had come from orders that had trained them to idealism and even mercy.  None were fool enough to question him aloud.  He crossed back to his wife, who had likewise stood up, although she looked to him like she ought to sit back down in a proper chair.  “Did they say anything to you?” he asked, his hand cradling her face. 

            She shook her head.

            They were still watching him.  They were still watching him because he had started pacing.  “This is not supposed to happen,” he muttered.  “A renegade’s life is forfeit to his master, but it stops there.  Only the Crow himself.  No _parenti acquisiti_.  They had no right.”

            “I thought you’d gotten this settled already, when I was dealing with the Architect.”

            “As did I!  Apparently my master has more at stake in our deaths than I thought.”

            “Alesio was your master?” Taniva asked quietly.

            “Yes.  But his right to me has been negated, and to attack you as well is – this, this was – ”  He waved an arm around them, then started calling out orders, indifferent to who received them.  “One of you goes back immediately.  Gather half a dozen armed men to escort the lady and myself to Denerim.  One messenger to run ahead and tell both the Queen and the Bann that she must be guarded while she is there.  We leave here in the morning at the latest.”  He turned again to face Taniva, who was only watching him quietly.  In a kinder voice he added, to her, “Choose one of the women to help you pack, _amora_ , but do not argue with me.  I am going to insist.”

            She nodded.  “It would have been time soon anyway.”

            She was humoring him rather than agreeing with his level of concern, but he was content with that for now.  It only remained to burn off enough of this anger to be able to travel with an escort and not terrify them.  Leaving the witnesses to carry out their instructions, he stalked out to the practice grounds and killed a thousand imaginary men, cursing with every thrust.

 


	2. The Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zevran battens down the hatches at home and prepares for his trip to Antiva.

            He’d already been protective of her for months; he realized that.  It was a flaw that had surfaced not long after they’d confirmed the pregnancy:  however much he had wanted it, knowing it was real conjured the memory that his own mother had died in childbirth, and that in turn evoked a superstitious dread that nothing could completely assuage.  Taniva tolerated it as much as she could, playing along with his folk wisdom in regards to food and activities, and suffering him to cover her with talismanic jewelry.  Despite the fierce nature that was part of what he loved in her, the roughest action she’d seen lately was having her hair pulled when he took her from behind.

            Except, of course, for this.  To have her threatened from _outside_ at the same time was more than he was going to bear.  His old Master had gone beyond his rights; he had made it too personal. 

            “I should have killed the Guildmaster when I was there,” he complained to her.  “I tried that mercy thing you used to do, and it blew up in my face.”

            That made her laugh.  “If you’d killed the Guildmaster, maybe Alesio would just be trying to kill you to get the position for himself.”

            “That’s true,” he sighed.  “Along with every other master with pretentions.  Better one of them than all of them, eh?”

But other than that, Zevran held his tongue on the journey back to their home in Denerim, not wanting to provoke the debate he knew would attend his plans until there was no choice.

            Shianni was waiting at their Denerim house.  She still wore her hair in girlish tails even now that she was a Bann, and her clothes were still tomboyish as well, though of nicer make.  She grabbed Taniva to her almost as fiercely as Zevran had done when he found her bathed in blood.  “Thank the Maker you’re home!  I’m not going to let you out of my sight until the baby’s born.  I’ve already started making your mother quilt, and I’m not going to let you spoil it.”

            “Mother quilt?” Zevran asked.

            Shianni sniffed.  “You’re not the only one with _customs_ , you know.  It’s a new blanket for the parents, covered with flower patterns.  It carries the blessing of the _vhenadahl_ and the community of women who create it.”

            Zevran nodded.  “Good, good, that makes sense.  I knew you had to do _something_ useful in Ferelden.  These are not things we merely leave to chance in civilized places.  But nothing that is for the baby comes into the house until the baby is there.”

             “So you’re going to have to get all the clothes and things, _and_ baby furniture for here and Amaranthine both, right after your wife has given birth and wants nothing more than to sleep for several days straight.”

            “For which you will have made her a quilt!  And I’m sure you will have a lot of things stashed away somewhere, as impatient as you are.  But I would like to discuss the matter of guarding the house.”

            “Of course.  I can show you the schedule I’ve drawn up for the – ”

            “In the other room,” he added quietly.

            Taniva scowled.  “Andraste’s burning toes.  There can’t be _more_ Antivan witchcraft you’re going to impose on me.  And behind my back, now.”

            “My ‘Antivan witchcraft’ has performed perfectly so far, my dear Warden.”  He smiled his most winsome smile.  “And it has gotten you out of several of your duties as an Arlessa, has it not?”

            “Hmph.  That’s true.”  She cuddled up to him, won over.  “I still wish Anora hadn’t done it.  Why did she think I told her to make Shianni the Bann and not me?  I don’t want to sit up in splendor and rule a bunch of _shems._   I want to kill things and take their stuff.”

            He chuckled.  “Which is why I adore you.  Although I still say we can do that _and_ sit up in splendor.  But let me speak to your cousin, _amora._   You should not trouble yourself about schedules for soldiers.  Go and relax.”  He kissed her forehead.

            “I’ll be so relaxed by the time this is over that I’ll need a trip through the Deep Roads just to wake up.”  All the same, she relented and left the room, and he watched with a sort of poignant amusement the way her walk had changed, even on the road from Amaranthine to Denerim.  She was only going to be more and more vulnerable.

            As soon as she was out of hearing range, Shianni smacked him on the forearm.  “Why did you leave her where she could be attacked in the first place?”

            “You have argued with her before, I’m sure.  The best I could do was to let her come as far as the camp and leave her with a guard.  And the Crows should have given up on her well before now.”

            Shianni crossed her arms.  “Well, so what did you want to talk about?  Not the schedule, I take it.”

            He sighed.  “What I want is for you to be overprotective enough for both of us.  I want a constant watch, well-armed and experienced with rogues.  And Wynne, and the best midwife in Denerim.  Don’t let her out of your sight or far from home, no matter how she complains.”

            Shianni’s eyes were darkening with concern.  “And where will you be while I’m doing all of this, Zev?”

            “I will be eliminating the threat.  Someone should, don’t you think?”

            “Of course, but.  It’s dangerous, and she’ll worry about you.  And it’s getting close to time, you know.”

            “Of course I know.”  He scowled.  “That is why I want this done, and why I want you to do these other things for me.  We could trade roles if you prefer, but I think I will do better in Antiva than you would.”

            Her shoulders slumped forward a little.  “I’m sorry.  I know you wouldn’t leave if you didn’t think it was important.”

            “Massage!” he interjected, his thoughts already racing forward, assuming agreement.  “I never taught you how to give a proper massage.  She is starting to need them.”

            “Somehow I don’t think I’d do it the way you do anyway,” Shianni smirked.

            But it turned out to be days before a ship willing to take a passenger arrived, and during that time Zevran did manage to show Shianni some of his less sexually charged techniques, with Taniva as a model.  As a rule, his Warden would make a token protest against being fussed over and then moan and give herself up to their ministrations.

            And then they would shoo Shianni away and finish the massage themselves.

            Wynne visited and declared satisfaction with the way things were progressing, even though Taniva was less enthusiastic about new aches and lack of sleep.  Only to be expected, Wynne assured her, and only thank the Maker they hadn’t arrived before the attack.

            Up until the morning he was preparing to leave for the docks, Zevran had not gotten the resistance he’d expected from Taniva.  Now she sat on the bed watching him dress to go, and chided him with a rueful smile.  “It just figures you’d be gone during the hard part.”

            He winced.  “You cut me, _amora._ ”

            “I’m sorry.”  She turned her gaze down toward the floor.  “I always thought that if you went back to Antiva again, I would go with you.  If you would wait a couple of months, I could – ”

            “If I wait, they will have time to try again, and your balance and your reach are worse by the day.  If I wait, there is another person to deal with.  The baby’s first experience of travel should not be a visit to the Crows.  Take my word on this.”  He knelt and took her hands in his.  “No fights with trained assassins until she is at least, what – two or three years old.”

            She laughed, but her eyes were damp.  “I’ll miss you, Zev.  Be quick.”

            “As quick as I can be.”  He gave her what he intended to be a short kiss, but inevitably it lingered and was joined by several friends.  “Behave yourself.”

            When he had escaped as far as the door she threw one last lure at his back.  “ _In bocca al lupo._ ”

            He touched the door frame and smiled sadly to himself.  He had finally taught her the correct way to wish him good luck.  _Into the wolf’s mouth_.  Closer to a literal truth this time than many.

            He answered her in the common tongue, over his shoulder.  “May he choke on me.”

            And then he was away, going past the guards and toward the docks, and onto the waiting ship, sails filled with the winds that would replace the smells of his new home with those of the sea, and then with those of his old home, Antiva City.

 


	3. The Fox

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zevran establishes a base and goes fishing for information.

            This was his second visit to the city of his birth since he had married Taniva, and it struck him even more this time how much of its savor was lost.  The market smells of fish and spice and leather, the outrageous colors, the sheer number of people bustling through the streets – they were becoming objects more of memory than of attachment, fading tokens of someone he no longer quite was.  Even the gayer melody of Antivan language all around him was somehow strange rather than welcoming, so accustomed had he grown to it being the language of secret thoughts.

            At least it was easier here to blend into the crowd while he assessed his position.  He had already changed into Antivan clothes before leaving the ship; and here, his coloring was not nearly so exotic as they found it in Ferelden.  And the city itself was vast, big enough to absorb Denerim and hardly notice the difference.

            His Master – _Alesio.  Use the name.  Alesio._   Young Crows, especially those that began as slaves, lived in such terror of their Masters that they never referred to them by proper name, often not even in their own heads.  But Zevran was here to kill him; he could no longer afford to give the man that much of a mental advantage.  _Alesio_ had kept court near the markets on the western side of town, the second most prestigious territory in Antiva City, and thus in the entire Order.

            Zevran meandered, not too purposefully, in that direction.  The neighborhood he needed had no lack of run-down inns where no name had to be left with the innkeeper, so he would be able to make camp, as it were, near the building he intended to keep watch over.  He had to re-learn the rhythms of the place, who was currently in favor and in town, how often the Master – Alesio came himself.

            That was the work of _time_ , and he hated it.  He had spent the first part of his life worrying that love would make him soft or weak when it came to killing:  as it turned out, what it really made him was impatient.  A week went by, and then another, and he spent much of his time brooding over his Warden’s pregnancy – how it was progressing, when she would give birth, whether he would be there, whether anything would go wrong.  He actually found himself sleeping with the leather gloves she had given him laid on the pillow near his head.  It was so much harder to spend this long staking out a place when one had somewhere else one wanted to be.

            And what made it even more vexing was that nothing seemed as it should be.  He had expected there to be new apprentices, new faces, as there always were; but he did not recognize _anyone_ coming or going – none of the people who had been inducted during his time or before it.  No one even connected to Alesio, much less the Master himself.

            Perhaps things had changed more here than he had allowed for.  Infighting?  Reorganization?  Had Alesio himself cleared house and started over again?  And if Alesio was not _here_ , where should Zevran go next to find the answer?  Maker forbid he should have to win another unprecedented audience with the Guildmaster.  Once had been hard enough.

            He had not yet settled on a new plan when his luck turned with the arrival of a middle-aged Crow clad, atypically, in Nevarran style leather.  This one he recognized, tall and slender and beak-nosed – Delsin.  But he had never been Alesio’s man:  he belonged to Master Paulo.  There had never been much love lost between the two Masters, which meant that Zevran might be safe approaching one of Paulo’s people for information, just as he had been safe among Master Ignacio’s in Denerim during the first hunt for him.  Safe as such things went, anyway.

            Zevran shadowed him down into the marketplace, watching for his opening.  Not too public, but also not too private.  The bar at which Delsin stopped for a drink sufficed:  enough noise for privacy, enough witnesses to prevent immediate violence.  Zevran stepped into view and grasped the man by the wrist rather than the hand – the greeting meant to reveal both that he was a Crow and that he had nothing concealed on his forearm.  “You were not a west-sider when I saw you last, Delsin.”

            Delsin laughed, unthreatened.  “I remember you, Zevran!  Are you back in the fold, then?  Come to shop for a new Master?”

            Zevran gestured toward a table, and they sat and had wine brought before he responded.  “You ask if I need a new Master.  That does touch on my question.  What happened to the old one?”

            Delsin raised his bushy eyebrows.  “My Master has this district now:  I think Alesio was sent off to Seleny.”  That wasn’t even a coastal city:  it was far inland, up the river.  Zevran must have shown his surprise, because Delsin went on.  “Come now, my friend.  He was the one who dared to take a contract on Gray Wardens.  It failed, and given who the Gray Wardens are, that is already bad.  But then he also failed to catch the underling he had sent when he went rogue, _and_ _then_ the rogue managed to convince the Guildmaster to take his side over Alesio.  Surely you can see the chilling effect all of this would have on a man’s career.”

            Zevran smirked and crossed his arms.  “Good night to the bucket, I suppose.  Even so, Seleny is a long drop from Antiva City.  I suppose it would explain the grudge, if not the nerve.  But still.”  He looked thoughtfully at the other Crow.  “Would he gain back honor if the surviving Warden and I turned up dead, do you think?  Or would he lose more?”

            “Hmm.  I suppose you don’t know, far away in dog country.  The Guildmaster has spoken well of you on more than one occasion since your talk.  Alesio might be thinking you are going to replace him as a Master, if not by direct challenge then by the Guildmaster’s decision.”

            “I left a contract unfinished, stayed in Ferelden, and spent nearly two years running from my brothers, all as part of my plan to become a Master?  How devious I am!”

            Delsin smiled a little.  “ _Do_ you plan to challenge him?  There are plenty of people who would not be sad to see him fall the rest of the way into his grave.”

            “Would you and Master Paulo be among them, I wonder?”

            Delsin shrugged.  “I will tell you this.  Alesio will not hear anything about you from us except what you want him to hear.”

            Zevran mused over this as he sipped his wine.  He’d forgotten how much better Antivan wine was than Fereldan.  He would have to encourage his Warden to have more imported to Amaranthine.  “In that case, yes, I am challenging him formally.  He will have to come and face me here, and that will save me a trip to Seleny.”

            “Of course, if he is really so afraid of you, he may well send someone ahead of him to kill you first.  It would look bad, but he could pretend not to know about it, and it would be better than more open humiliation or dying.”

            “There is risk involved.  But I am not familiar enough with his new territory, so he would have me at a disadvantage if I went to him.”  He added with a casual smile, “And I don’t want to go to Seleny if I can help it.  There is nothing to _do_ there.”

            Delsin laughed.  “This is what the Guildmaster says about you, you know.  That he likes your spirit.  That is how he painted the target on your back.  I think he wanted to _provoke_ you into taking Alesio’s position.”

            “Why?  I am infamous for lacking ambition.”

            The other Crow leaned forward, serious.  “But that makes you perfect.  Good enough to be a Master, without being ambitious enough to try to rise further than that.  He is getting old enough to worry about such things.”

            “I would not want to be Guildmaster.  There is nowhere to go but down.”  He finished his cup.  “That said, I think being the least among the Masters would be safer than being noteworthy in the lower ranks.  And I did want to kill Alesio anyway.  Do you think you can get me a messenger to take my challenge to Seleny?”

            “I’m sure Master Paulo would be happy to provide one.”

            That was worth one more cup in friendship, but it would not pay to get drunk with an unproven man; and since he now tried to avoid his other main method of assuring goodwill when his wife was not present to join him, the second cup was the last for the night.

            Then it was back to waiting.

 


	4. The Whore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Master Alesio tries to have Zevran killed before the duel, and the elf must use all of his old skills to regain the upper hand. (M)

            He devoted great attention to controlling when and where Alesio’s men would find him, choosing times and places where he could be found and making sure to leave no trace when he left them.  He had no doubt that his old Master would send someone ahead to kill or at least weaken him:  the man was desperate, trying to wipe his old slate completely clean to salvage his position.

            That raised the unpleasant question of whether Zevran himself had been drawn out to Antiva City to separate him from his Warden and make them easier to strike separately.  He did not think so:  plans that subtle had not been Alesio’s usual way.  And he had left her under the care of the best warriors and healers Denerim could offer, in any case.

            Of course, even if there would be no more attacks on her, there would be the danger of giving birth, which he was more convinced each day would happen before he could get back to her.  All this waiting.  She could very well die then – or the baby, or even both of them – and he would not be there.  And then all of this would be pointless, the last weeks they might have spent together thrown away for –

            It was no use letting himself think this way.  It did nothing for her, and it weakened his focus.

            He was eating an indifferently prepared serving of goat when he felt them watching him.  Three men at a table behind him and just off to his left, not conversing nearly enough for the general mood of the place.  He turned to wave the boy down for a last cup of wine, both to let the men get a look at his profile to be sure of his identity, and to catch a sideways glimpse of them.

            Interesting.  He nursed his drink slowly while he contemplated them.  Gianni was among them, probably their leader, and that meant Zevran could guess which way this was going to proceed.  After one more moment to mentally prepare himself, he stood, left his money on the table, and with an artful toss of his hair, made his way toward the door.  He made a show of being moderately cautious, so that they would feel they were earning their pay in following him, but he took care not to actually lose them.

            He was cutting through an appropriately obscure alley when Gianni made his move – and his move was to call out Zevran’s name.  Yes, that was as he’d suspected:  Gianni was neither impartial nor subtle enough to simply cut at him from behind.  He turned slowly to face them:  Gianni closer and in the center, his muscles even thicker than they had once been, short brown hair just starting to gray at the temples.  The other two were younger, less familiar but not brand new recruits.

            He gave them his very falsest smile.  “Hello, Gianni!  How sad I was not to find you when I came back to the city.  Are you enjoying Seleny?”

            Gianni took one step forward.  “So you do remember me.  I’m flattered.”

            “Of course.  Who would forget such broad shoulders?”

            Another step, and the other two remained behind, one watching their backs in case anyone else came along.  “I’ve brought a message for you from the Master.”

            “So I assumed.”

            Gianni grabbed him by the wrist to keep him from fleeing, as if he’d been intending to.  “He accepts your challenge, and regrets that you are going to be found dead in an alley before he arrives.”

            “Yes, I imagine he was weeping when he told you.  So tender.  But you know, I would really prefer not to be found dead in an alley.  If he intends to send a mob after me rather than meet me fairly, I would just as soon go home, really.  Can we discuss that option?”

            A trace of a smile, and there was not only violence in it.  “No.  Although you can beg for your life if you’d like.”  He moved a little closer still, close enough to feel his breath.  His voice lower, he added, “I always wanted to hear you beg.”

            Again as he’d thought.  Zevran tilted his head a little, exposing neck to the man as he half closed his eyes and let his lips fall just slightly open.  “I’m sorry we never made it that far.  You know how jealous Taliesin was.”  Gianni’s face was already filling with lust, and Zevran raised his chin to brush his lips, only just barely, against his captor’s.

            Gianni responded by backhanding him and then grabbing the hair at the nape of his neck, yanking him closer.  “Don’t misunderstand this, little whore,” he rasped.  “You are not seducing me for your freedom.  I am fucking you before I kill you.”

            Very well:  if the man preferred a bit of token struggle, he would be accommodating.  He jerked back his head and arm, deliberately avoiding the most effective angle.  Gianni grinned and flung him against the wall, grabbing his other arm to pin them both over his head.  “Disarm him,” he snarled over his shoulder to the other man nearby, a shag-haired blonde with a sword.  The younger man approached and started to brush his hands over Zevran’s body, checking him for weapons.

            Zevran hummed pleasantly at him.  “So forward, and we have yet to be properly introduced.”  That earned him a slap in the face.  The boy found the boot dagger, as he’d expected:  he might be inexperienced enough to think that Zevran was a safe captive disarmed, but Gianni would not be.  That meant that the most dangerous part of the game was coming now – he would have to convince Gianni that the fight had gone out of him well before it actually had.

            Only one punch connected with his face:  mostly they pummeled his body, each taking a turn holding his arms back as the others struck him.  It was the proper way of taming a whore, focusing on the torso and keeping the face pretty.  He gave up struggling in measured increments, and they believed.  When he no longer showed the will to kick or pull against them, they let him drop to the ground and kicked him there.  He felt a rib crack:  a calculated risk, and now he would have to trust the rush of the moment to carry him long enough not to be impeded too much by it.

            He gasped for breath and touched his head to the ground; when he lifted it, he made sure they saw the trace of blood in the corner of his mouth, and that his eyes were weary and resigned.  They believed.  All the men of the Crows except Taliesin had always been happy to believe that Zevran could not tolerate pain as well as they did, because he was pretty and elven and good-humored.

            They stripped him, and he let his limbs hang heavy in their arms, neither resisting nor aiding them.  Now would come the distraction – but it had been a long time since he had done such things on a purely professional level, now, and he found that he had to actively will his throat and his sphincter to relax with a deep breath.  No sooner had he done so than Gianni shoved his whole length into Zevran’s mouth and grabbed the back of his head to hold him there, hoping to choke him.  Zevran closed his eyes and stroked the underside with the tip of his tongue.  This was his reputation:  this was his fame.  Excellence in the face of rough trade.

            Gianni grunted in satisfaction and started thrusting.  His cock was as thick as the rest of him – including his head, Zevran thought, with a distant amusement.  He could hear both of the men close to him breathing harder with excitement; and even the third man, the lookout, must have been turning sometimes to see them, because he was starting to make restless sounds.

            “You’ll have your turn after I’m finished, Pio,” Gianni snapped.  “Focus.”

            The lookout’s name meant _pious._   Ah, life’s little ironies.  Right now, however, Zevran was probably supposed to react to the implication that all three men would have a chance at him, as if that was unexpected.  He raised his arms as if to try to push Gianni away, so that the man could grab his wrists again to restrain him.  After another moment, he pulled away from Zevran’s mouth, handed his wrists off to his blonde cohort, and moved behind the elf.

            His mouth was filled again almost instantly, while Gianni knelt and positioned himself.  Zevran wondered if Gianni was aware that it was a kindness to have taken the mouth first, a little moisture to ease the entry – probably not.  Again he took a deep breath to make sure he relaxed enough:  but Gianni was thick, and rough, and it had been a long time, so he still gasped and clenched as the man grabbed his hips and entered him.  It was the response Gianni wanted, though, so he played it up, moaning and clutching at the fabric of the blonde’s shirt.

            This was the crucial time, the time when he must not lose his head, not to pain or to pleasure.  The blonde’s breaths were heavy and loud; Gianni rode him at an erratic speed, swearing quiet oaths to himself over how good he felt.  The unevenness was not to Zevran’s advantage, since it made it hard to gauge how far along – the blonde dropped his arms to twine his fingers into the elf’s hair, engrossed enough to lose caution.  Neither man noticed when he shifted his left knee further inward.  This was the moment.

            He bit as hard as he could, felt the flesh give way and the blood rush into his mouth and over his lips.  The blonde screamed and jumped back, grabbing at the wound as if that could be enough to knit him back together.  But it was deep, closer to severed than whole, and the would-be assassin dropped to the ground in agony and panic.  Zevran dropped his weight onto his hands and swung his right leg up and back, hooking his heel into Gianni’s face and slamming him into the wall.  He let the momentum of the kick turn him, and he drove his left hand into the man’s throat at the end of the spin, crushing his windpipe.  The blonde’s throat he stepped on as he rose to his feet.

            That left Pio, who was just now aware enough of what had gone wrong to be moving toward Zevran and drawing his dagger.  Zevran moved off of the second body to take a more formal fighting stance against the opponent who was prepared for him.

            The lookout made a couple of initial sweeps toward Zevran’s hands, obvious feints with no purpose but to put him on the defensive.  A more meaningful cut at the face, but he suspected this was still not the real attack, so he shifted his weight back without changing his guard.  Pio followed with a jab to the stomach, this one accompanied by a lunge.  But Zevran was ready:  he crossed his arms downward, blocking the man at the wrist.  His top hand grabbed, and he twisted Pio’s arm over, sweeping his free arm down to counter his pull to straighten the arm and weaken Pio’s grip on the knife.  He gained control of the dagger easily, and sliced across the man’s exposed side, immediately followed by a stab to the neck.

            He left the dagger there.  There was no more use for it.

            Zevran reflected casually on the scene he was leaving behind as he gathered his clothes.  Alesio had not wanted to leave evidence that he had sent others to kill him, but Zevran very much wanted it to be clear how he had handled the attempt.  These men had not known that this alley was along the route between Alesio’s former seat of power and the whorehouse from which he had bought the elf, but both Alesio and the Guildmaster would know.  And the state in which the bodies would be found would leave no doubt in anyone’s mind who had killed them.

            It was a message:  interfere with the Whore at your peril.

 

 


	5. The Crow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zevran faces Alesio in the court of the Guildmaster.

            Timing.  Everything came down to timing.

            The courier from the Guildmaster called Zevran and Alesio to appear before him on Saturday.  He lived in a gorgeous villa overlooking the sea, fronted by a huge tile fountain and the first of several clutches of well-trained guards.  Symbols, both of these.  _Money is like water_ was the saying, because it tended to flow toward more of itself.  A rich Antivan household would not be complete without a fountain or a pool.  As for the guards, they were also common among the wealthy:  but in this case, they would be nothing compared to the muscle and guile on supply inside.

            Zevran was led to the villa’s private arena, a round enclosure dug a few steps down into the earth and paved in limestone.  Seated around and above him were the Guildmaster and those Masters and other Crows of high rank who had been near enough to summon for the occasion as witnesses, along with the handful of noblemen who would have been invited to watch for sport.

            Alesio had been brought first, and he stood waiting calmly in the center of the ring.  Drakeskin armor and dragon bone knives, just like Zevran remembered; but his slicked-back hair was now more gray than black, and the lines in his cheeks and forehead were more deeply etched.  The two regarded each other with bows of the head, and at first, nothing else.  Neither drew a weapon or attacked, not yet.  As with the initial testing for Crows, a duel for position was as much a matter of style as of substance, and handled improperly, drawing first was read as a sign of insecurity, and insecurity invited more challengers.

            The first cuts, therefore, were always verbal.

            “So the Whore returns to Antiva.  I hear you had to put down your Dog.” 

No.  Zevran had not come all this way to rise to such obvious bait.  “If you had confessed your love for me when I lived here, everything would have been so much easier.”

“And you still have this insolent sense of humor.”

“How else would you explain it?  Ah, you would prefer anger, I suppose.”  _Say his name.  Show that he has lost that hold on you._   He added with the bare ghost of a smile, “Master Alesio.”

Alesio nodded slightly in recognition.  “You were a fool to come here.”

            “Well, I thought that as long as I was going to kill you anyway, I would go ahead and challenge you for your position.”  Zevran started the slow, circling walk by which they would approach each other.

            The Master sneered, bitter.  “It would have meant more had you not committed yourself to undermining my position first.  How much lower did you hope to bring me before I flushed you out?”

“Your paranoia has killed you.  If you had not attacked my Warden, you would never have heard from me again.”

“ _Your_ Warden.  You never could be trusted with anything fuckable.”  His glare turned even harder.  “Still, it is hard to believe you would ruin _both_ of us for a piece of white Fereldan ass.”

Zevran’s fingers twitched, eager to draw his daggers, but he held himself in check.  Instead, he smiled.  “I’m sorry my brown Antivan ass got too old for you, Alesio.  Boys grow into men:  it is almost inevitable.”

A wince, a sign of weakness.  “Again, your idea of comedy.”

“Do the other Masters ever ask you why you used to go shopping for young elven boys in whorehouses?  I know I was not the first:  I just lasted the longest.”

Anything was permissible somewhere in Antiva, but there were certain things considered unseemly among the Crows, and pedophilia was among them.  Alesio’s fixation on Zevran’s sexuality would make the accusation seem plausible; and since Zevran was already _the Whore_ , he would lose much less face than the Master.

Alesio tried to regain the upper hand.  “Does _your_ Warden know you’ve killed all of your other lays?  Including your partner and your own apprentice.  I wonder how much longer she has.”

A toothy grin in the place of a glare.  “If your words are true, my killing you is inevitable, _babbino._ ”  _Daddy,_ in the form used for sexual contexts.

That was enough to provoke Alesio into drawing first, and Zevran rewarded him with an air kiss.  Then he spun away from the answering slice, pulling his own daggers as he did.  Alesio dodged his first cut and deflected the second; Zevran hopped back from the answering strike, and the two began to circle again, waiting for cleaner openings.

“A little slower than I remember you,” Zevran commented.  “Just a bad day, or are you getting too old?”

Two quick thrusts with the right hand and then a cut with the left, which Zevran had to twist his body to avoid.  He tried to combine the turn with a slice to the Master’s hand, but Alesio dropped out of his way, meaning to attack Zevran’s legs.  Again the elf jumped back – and observed the bare hint of stagger as Alesio came back up onto his feet, and the slight narrowing of his eyes.  The first loss of focus.

“Or perhaps they fed you bad fish at the _Brutta Sirena._ ”

A flicker of uncertainty, then a smile to cover it.  “Where?”

“It was your favorite when you lived here.  I’m sure you miss fine food in Seleny.”

“A good bluff, little whore, but it doesn’t mean you know – ”

“Fish on Friday.  So pious, so predictable.”

            Pupils starting to dilate, now that the blood was pumping.  “What have you done?” Alesio hissed.

            “Nothing lethal.  And more importantly, nothing I learned in Antiva.”

            It was a slow poison, but now that the Master was alarmed as well as active, he would be feeling its effects more and more.  Effects he would not recognize in this combination, because it was a Fereldan poison, one the Master had _not_ both seen and tasted many times in his long life, for which he had not built a resistance.

            Alesio was too good to panic, but he did realize that hurting Zevran badly and soon was his only hope for survival.  He cut toward Zevran’s face with his right hand, and as the elf stepped back, pursued with a left-handed thrust.  Zevran spun to the left with his right dagger raised, a deflection – and because of the tiny lag in Alesio’s responses, he was able to turn it into a cut to the lower arm, where the glove did not protect it.  From there, an easy twist to bring the dagger across the Master’s exposed side.  The man was already falling to his knees when Zevran moved behind him, pulled back his head by the hair, and slashed across his throat.

            “I am sorry there was not time to make it hurt more,” he whispered before he dropped the dying Master.

            He stood over the body, willing himself back toward calm, away from wishing he could kill the man a second time.  Above him was polite, disinterested applause from the Crows; the nobles cheered, and money appeared to be changing hands.  He wondered what odds he had been given.

            The Guildmaster stood, and the room went quiet to hear him speak.  “The fight is yours, Zevran Arainai.  He owes you his ring finger.”

            “He owes me a _hand_ ,” Zevran growled, and bent over the body, severing the fingers one by one, starting with the index finger.  “For the Bitch.”  The middle finger.  “For the Dog.”  Now the thumb, with a particularly unpleasant crunching sound.  “For the Warden.”  The pinky, snarling the words.  “For the child in her belly.”  And then, _then_ the ring finger, his Master’s seal still on it.  “And the one for the Whore.”  From this one he took the bloodied ring, then threw the finger down on the floor with the rest of them and rose.

            “Here it is,” he said more loudly, holding the ring up for everyone to see.  “Do any of you want it?”  Silence.

            “There is no challenge, Zevran,” said the Guildmaster.  “You are Master in Seleny.”

            “I do not want Seleny.  I want to trade with Ignacio for Denerim.”

            Mutters among the audience.  The Guildmaster chuckled a little, with a smile that looked suspiciously affectionate.  “You want to trade down.”

            Zevran stepped closer, so that he could speak without shouting.  “I do.  I want to be beneath the notice of the ambitious, so that they can fight amongst themselves without involving me.  I want the freedom to run Denerim in a way that suits Ferelden, not Antiva.  I want to be where my home is.”

            The Guildmaster snickered.  “Spoken like a man in love.  What if Ignacio does not want the trade?”

            “Then I’m sure you can persuade him, Guildmaster.”

            “True enough.  Very well, then, Denerim is yours, Master Zevran.  Claiming so deep a kinship with Ferelden, I hope that you will strengthen our influence there.”

            He glanced quickly around at the assembled Masters.  Amusement, disbelief, perhaps some grudging respect:  no obvious hostility or sense that they felt threatened.  Good.  As for the Guildmaster, whatever noises he made in front of the others, he would expend no energy making sure that Zevran behaved himself as befitted an Antivan Master.  At this point in his life, his concern was keeping his own house together and in power.

            The guards unlocked the doors, and Zevran walked through them as close to a free man as he had ever been.

 


	6. The Kitten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Homecoming.

            Master Zevran of Denerim.

            Because of the weather, the ship came to port at an awkwardly late hour.  He left Delsin, the second who had been loaned to him until he was established, to carry the news to Ignacio and see to the storage of the crate of gifts the new Master was afraid to take into his house before he knew who would meet him there.

            The Denerim house was a comfortable mishmash of Fereldan and Antivan elements, and he breathed it in wearily.  There were still a couple of hours before dawn:  if all was well, he might get some sleep.

            All would be well.  Hadn’t he told himself that a thousand times already on the boat?  Everything he’d done was to purchase this moment, not a title he’d never coveted, and the moment would be his, or else… well.  Or else he lived in a cruel, useless world just as he had always been taught.

            Downstairs everything had the air of someone still living here, among things he recognized.  That was a good sign.  And there, there was a bassinet next to one of the chairs.

            His heart skipped painfully.  It _should_ be another good sign, if his Warden and Shianni had listened to all his goings-on about Antivan custom.  There _should_ be no such items in the house without a baby to inhabit them.  Then again, he was dealing with a woman who had seemed determined to shower him with symbols of bad luck all through their courtship.

            He crept up the stairs, warning himself to remain prepared for anything, brutal against his own hopes.  The bedroom door stood half way open; as he nudged it further, he could already hear breath in the room.  Two people.  On the left, his darling in their bed, covered with what he assumed was Shianni’s mother quilt, a riot of multi-colored flowers only slightly less extravagant than Taniva’s mismatched socks.  On the right, in a crib made from red wood, a child.  Their child.

            Both alive, and sleeping.  He sighed in relief and the feeling of his heart refilling, and his limbs seemed to double in weight.  As quietly as he could, he started to remove his armor.  Taniva began to stir, becoming aware of him.  “ _Sono solo io, amora,_ ” he said quietly.

            She turned upward a little as he finished disrobing, and gave him a sleepy smile.  “Zev.  I missed you.”

            He sat down on the bed beside her and showered kisses on her face, breathing her in.  “ _Ti amo, ti amo, ti amo._ ”

            Her eyes never opened more than halfway.  She tugged on his arm.  “Come to bed.”

            “In a moment,” he said, with one more kiss.  “I have to meet someone first.”

            “Tilani,” she mumbled as he rose to cross the room, and his heart leapt again.  They’d chosen that as a girl’s name.  He’d _told_ her it was a girl.

            “Tilani,” he echoed, approaching the crib.  A copy of the _Chant of Light_ sat on a pedestal beside it, and the crib itself was painted in what seemed to be intended as an imitation of the Antivan style, but for some reason, it was all… cats.

            “Did we do it right?” Taniva asked, still only barely coherent.  “That was one of the things you said.  _Books, cats, and fair-haired girls._ ”

            His heart was _too_ full, now.  Surely there wasn’t any more room.  “That one is only a saying,” he laughed.  “But it is perfect, _amora._ ”  Gingerly, he lifted the little creature into his arms.  Fair-haired, yes, a silky thatch of yellow on the top of her head.  She was also a deep sleeper, barely stirring as he examined her tiny features – hands and feet, nose like her mother’s, full lips like his, faintly pointed ears.

            He brushed his face against her impossibly soft forehead.  “ _Ciao, Principessa.  Sono tuo papà._ ” 

            “No,” his beloved groaned from the bed.  “No conspiring in Antivan.”

            This was worth it.  This was worth everything.

            “No conspiring.  I promise.  Go back to sleep, _amora._ ”  He climbed into bed beside her, still carrying the baby with him, and snuggled in close to them both.  His Warden’s hand covered his, and the world was perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Twist Shimmy for beta.
> 
> This was written between the releases of Awakening and Dragon Age 2, back when we thought Anders might get to live the rest of his life just being Anders. Simpler times.


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